THE WORLD THROUGH THE PRISM OF MENTAL DISORDER: PATIENTS’ NARRATIVES IN THE LITERARY AND MEDICAL DISCOURSE OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Journal Title: Львівський філологічний часопис - Year 2018, Vol 4, Issue
Abstract
The present article traces the temporal axis “1946 – 1963 – 1993” in the literary and medical discourse of the U.S. prose in terms of actualization of the a mentally ill patient narrative figure. The research focuses on the autodiegetic narration of patients in the semi-autobiographical novels “The Snake Pit” (1946) by Mary Jane Ward, “The Bell Jar” (1963) by Sylvia Plath and “Girl, Interrupted” (1993) by Susanna Kaysen. Within the three analyzed literary works, a common tendency consists in the inclusion of biographical elements into the narrative: the authors provide a fictitious representation of their own in-patient experience at a psychiatric hospital and overcoming mental illness, which becomes the center of sense formation in the artistic text. The present novels are characterized by the autodiegetic mode of narration with various degrees of manifestation and concealment of the author’s “I” which determine the nature of the reader’s dialogic contact with the text: the “splitting” of the narrative into the alternate third and first person statement (dissociation of the heroine into “she” and “I” in a continuous stream of consciousness and inseparable unity), the autodiegetic narrative of the fictitious heroine which maximally represents the author’s intentionality and gives the reader the opportunity to observe the internal transformation of the source of presentation, and ultimately – the maximum convergence of the figures of the author and narrator (the use of real names and authentic clinical documentation). The productive synthesis of fictional elements and biographical details provides an illusion of the author’s maximum presence in the narrative “voice” of the novel. The receptive potential of the autodiegetic narrative in the sense of representing the author’s intentionality and embodiment of a wide palette of emotional shades in the inner world of a mentally ill patient has been analyzed. The unique stories of three heroines has been described here – the situations, experienced by the authors and artistically reconsidered in the autodiegesis of characters: narratives of illness, embarrassment, helplessness, and subsequently – of treatment and convalescence, gradual recovery, clarified worldview and final return to normal life. The study of medical problems in a literary text of the XX centuary through the prism of narratology and receptive aesthetics can reveal the author’s intentionality and dimensions of the reader’s reception, as well as re-consider the socio-cultural phenomena, such as illness and health, norm and pathology.
Authors and Affiliations
Юлія Валеріївна Лисанець
Keywords
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